The Vatican Museums
Rome • Italy

Vatican Museums, Rome, ItalyThe Vatican museums are situated within the Vatican City and form one of the greatest museums in the world.
Within the museum you can view exquisite work by artists such as Caravaggio, Raphael, Fra Angelico, Titian and Leonardo da Vinci to name but a few.

It was Pope Julius II who founded the museums in the 16th century when he uncovered a marble sculpture of Lacoon and placed it on display at the Vatican for all to see. Subsequent Popes have all added there own collections often adding their names to the museum in question.

A Glimpse Of Some Of The Sights

The Sistine Chapel is one of the most well known sites at the museum and is where Michelangelo painted his masterpiece onto the chapel ceiling, other artists such as Bernini, Raphael and Botticelli were also commissioned to work on the chapel creating one of the most breathtaking chapels in the world.

The gallery of maps was commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII and is a wonderful collection of maps of Italy that were painted directly onto the walls to provide a stunning gallery and history of how Italy would have looked in the 1580's.